Getting Started with DraftSight

Table of Contents

Getting Started with DraftSight

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

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Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code and graphics

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Introduction to DraftSight

Downloading and starting DraftSight

Understanding the user interface

Configuring DraftSight

Starting and setting up a drawing

Starting a drawing

Setting up a drawing

Opening, saving, and closing drawings

Summary

2. Drawing with Precision

Defining coordinates

Absolute coordinates

Relative Cartesian coordinates

Relative polar coordinates

Drawing lines and deleting

Drawing lines

Selecting and deleting

Graphical auxiliary tools

Ortho and Polar

Entity snaps

Entity snap tracking

Snap and Grid

Visualization tools

Exercise 2.1

Summary

3. Starting to Create Projects

Drawing circles and arcs

Drawing rectangles and polygons

Selecting entities

Moving, copying, and reflecting

Rotating and scaling

Offsetting and stretching

Trimming and extending

Filleting and chamfering

Exercise 3.1

Summary

4. Structuring Projects and Following Standards

Creating and managing layers

The layer list

The LAYER command

Filtering layers

Applying colors, linestyles, and lineweights

Applying colors

Applying linestyles

Applying lineweights

Exercise 4.1

Summary

5. Inquiring Projects and Modifying Properties

Measuring distances and angles

Measuring areas

Obtaining coordinates

Verifying and modifying properties

Exercise 5.1

Summary

6. Creating Complex Projects

Creating text styles and applying text

Creating polylines

Creating multiple equally spaced copies

Creating other entities

Creating tables and table styles

Joining, lengthening, and breaking the entities

Exercise 6.1

Summary

7. Creating and Applying Components

Creating components (blocks)

Inserting components

Exporting components

Editing components

Applying attributes

Cleaning the drawing

Exercise 7.1

Summary

8. Applying Fills and Patterns

Applying patterns

The Predefined and Custom types

User-defined type

Pattern origin

Boundary definition

Other options

Applying gradients

Editing fills and patterns

Exercise 8.1

Summary

9. Documenting Projects

Creating linear dimensions

Creating angular dimensions

Dimensioning arcs and circles

Ordinate dimensions and leaders

Editing dimensions

Creating and managing dimension styles

Exercise 9.1

Summary

10. Printing Efficiently

Creating and managing sheets for printing

Configuring sheets

Creating and managing print styles

Creating viewports

Adjusting viewport visualization, scale, and layers

Previewing and printing

Exercise 10.1

Summary

11. Advanced Tools

Referencing external drawings and images

Managing and linking external drawings and images

Clipping external drawings and images

Advanced layer commands

Exercise 11.1

Summary

Index

Getting Started with DraftSight

Getting Started with DraftSight

Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: August 2013

Production Reference: 1200813

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

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Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78216-024-3

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Cover Image by Sandeep Babu (<sandyjb@gmail.com>)

Credits

Author

João Santos

Reviewers

Deepak Gupta

Mark Lyons

Neb Radojkovic

Acquisition Editor

Mary Nadar

Commissioning Editor

Sruthi Kutty

Technical Editors

Vrinda Nitesh Bhosale

Mrunmayee Patil

Ruchita Bhansali

Project Coordinator

Michelle Quadros

Proofreader

Samantha Lyon

Indexer

Monica Ajmera Mehta

Production Coordinator

Melwyn D'sa

Cover Work

Melwyn D'sa

About the Author

João Santos is the manager and main instructor at QualiCAD (www.qualicad.com), one of the most important Portuguese ATCs (Autodesk Authorized Training Center), based in Lisbon. With a degree in Mechanical Engineering, he has been teaching AutoCAD for more than 25 years and, most recently teaching several AutoCAD clones such as DraftSight, ZW CAD, ProgeCAD, BitCAD. He is an AutoCAD 2013 and 3ds Max 2013 Certified professional user and instructor, being also the Portuguese instructor in these technologies with more students. João is the author and co-author of more than 40 Portuguese AutoCAD and 3ds Max books. He is also the author of Autodesk AutoCAD 2013 Practical 3D Drafting and Design, Packt Publishing.

First of all, I would like to thank my family for all their support and guidance. No less important are all my friends, students, readers and colleagues for their continuous questions, feedback, suggestions, and basically shaping my career. And I would also like to express my gratitude to everyone at Packt for this opportunity and collaboration.

About the Reviewers

Deepak Gupta graduated in 2000 from Indo Swiss Training Centre, (Chandigarh, India). With over 12 years of rich experience working with various industries, he has been working in different roles with different product lines. His main area of experience and interest has been the design and manufacturing processes along with team and project management.

He is working as Technical Director at Vishnu Design Services, an Engineering and CAD outsourcing service provider based in Chandigarh, India, offering wide range of CAD design, drafting, and engineering services. Being a certified SolidWorks expert and user for the last 7 years, Deepak is passionate about working with SolidWorks. Besides working for Vishnu Design Services, he enjoys writing for his own blog, Boxer's SolidWorks Blog where he writes tips, tricks, tutorials, and news about SolidWorks. In addition to this, he has participated in various SolidWorks World Conferences as a press member.

An important aspect of his life is his family—his parents, his wife, a 5-month old son, and other family members. He loves to travel and make friends.

I would like to thank my wife, Swati Gupta, for her love, kindness, and support she has shown during the past few weeks it has taken me to review this book. Furthermore I would also like to thank my parents for their endless love and support. I would also like to thank João Santos for writing such a great book, which I enjoyed reading more than simply reviewing. Last but not least, I would like to thank the Packt Publishing team for choosing me as one of the reviewers of this book and helping me out to complete the review of this book

This book is more like a mystery with secrets in every chapter. Don't miss out on your chance to explore them.

Mark Lyons works for Dassault Systèmes as the Product Manager for DraftSight. He is the principal of The Lyons' Share™ resource center for DraftSight. Prior to this position, he has been the Training Specialist for DraftSight since December 2008. Before taking this position, Mark was employed as CAD instructor at two regional high schools in Massachusetts. He began his career as a Mechanical Draftsman creating drawings the old fashioned way, with pencil and paper. He has worked in this industry since 1981, and has used many CAD products.

Neb Radojkovic comes from a technical family. Neb started technical (manual) drafting straight after high school in 1979. Over the years and while using his other skills, such as model making and painting, in 1990, Neb was introduced to AutoCAD. From that point on, Neb used AutoCAD to the best of his ability (self-taught) until he finished a 6-months course in AutoCAD 2D and 3D in 2000. His first job as an AutoCAD Operator was in the Doors and Windows manufacturing firm. Soon enough Neb was in search of more challenge, so he became a sole AutoCAD Draftsperson in a Kitchen Manufacturing business. He became expert in cabinetry, millwork and Interiors Drafting and Design using several software: AutoCAD, SolidWorks, DraftSight, and ARES Commander, to mention a few. Since 2008 Neb has been the owner and principal of Cadesigneb.com—his Interiors AutoCAD Drafting business. Neb is now also exploring CAD and 3D Photo Realistic Rendering. As a form of relaxation, Neb enjoys making Logos and Website Designs.

The main companies that Neb worked at were:

Energoprojekt: Belgrade, Serbia

Elmwood Kitchens: St. Catharines, ON

Benson Industries: Saanichton, BC

Cutting Edge Woodworks: Saanichton, BC

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Preface

DraftSight is a free CAD program that uses the DWG file format. It includes all the main tools to produce precise technical drawings and runs on a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows, Mac and Linux. The DWG file format is the most used CAD (Computer Aided Design) format, widely spread in all areas of technical drawings.

DraftSight runs in 15 languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese (traditional and simplified), and Russian. DraftSight is free for any personal or commercial application.

With a practical project and many illustrations, this book addresses all the main phases for executing a mechanical project, including setting up a drawing, drawing and editing with precision, organizing with layers and obtaining valid information from the drawing, applying patterns and dimension, and defining and printing sheets.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introduction to DraftSight, includes an introduction to DraftSight, where to download it, how